Authorities: 75 years for convicted rapist, murderer

Timothy Easley

Sauk Village police

Booking photo of Timothy Easley

Booking photo of Timothy Easley (Sauk Village police)

By Rosemary Regina SobolTribune reporter

A Sauk Village man today was sentenced to 75 years in prison for sexually assaulting and strangling a 15-year-old honor student and classmate whose body was found dumped in a wooded area in the south suburbs in 2008, authorities said.

Timothy Easley, 24, was given the sentence during a hearing at the Markham Courthouse before Cook County Judge Luciano Panici, according to a statement from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

A jury convicted Easley in January of first-degree murder and aggravated criminal sexual assault for sexually assaulting and strangling honor student Brashai Griffin and then leaving her body in a creek in a secluded area in Sauk Village, the statement said.

Easley and Griffin were classmates at Bloom Trail High School.

On April 2, 2008 at approximately 6:30 p.m., Griffin left her home in Sauk Village to meet Easley. Earlier that day, Griffin told other students at Bloom Trail that she was planning to meet Easley that night, the statement said.

When the victim’s mother came home about 10:30 p.m., she contacted police because her daughter was not home. Authorities hunted for the 15-year-old for almost 48 hours and found her body two days later in a wooded area near 223rd Street and Torrence Avenue in Sauk Village, the statement said.

An autopsy revealed that the girl had been strangled and sexually assaulted and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the statement.

DNA evidence taken from the girl during the autopsy was later matched to Easley’s DNA, the statement said.